Author: Team Logue

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Good morning everyone, I’m joined with Alanna Stephen from Escarpment Law and we’re having a Starbucks just reviewing some of the tips and tricks that you need to consider when buying or selling a home.

I get asked quite often, ‘do I really need a lawyer when I’m buying or selling a home?’ And my automatic answer is, ‘yes of course’ but I love to give people the details as to actually why.

I can understand why people ask that question. A lot of work is already been done at the beginning they’ve seen their mortgage person they seen their agent I’m the end service provider. So I like to bring everything together We liaison really well with the agents with the mortgage people that we pull all the details in but most importantly what we do is we make sure ‘are you getting what you think you are getting?’ Are you selling only what you need to be selling?’ We protect your rights under the agreement of purchase and sale. We check title, we do something called execution searches, we make sure there are no liens on title and the key thing is protecting the client and making sure on closing date there are no surprises.

There is nothing worse than us finding out as agents that all the sudden there’s a $50,000 construction lien against your property and the lawyers missed it. Right or we weren’t advised of it. I love that with your clients you meet with them well in advance and give them the full rundown of: here is where the funds are going to go to and that you’ve done those checks.

We can certainly try to, we can’t always due to a number of circumstances but certainly I will be in contact with them I always advise clients to reach out early if possible we open the file we get moving we discover problems early on and then we can deal with him quickly in a headway fashion and get them resolved. I think that’s the real key is you’re hiring a lawyer upfront to make sure that you don’t have any problems So many people think of lawyers as a problem solver and I love that you’re already ahead of the problem. So our clients always rave about you. You’ve literally cut out the problems ahead of the time because you’ve time to deal with the other lawyer, deal with the other agent or deal with whatever that issue is. Thank you. Thank you, that’s great.

So one other thing that came out the other day that was kinda neat and I was chatting with you about it and that is deposits. How do deposits work when I’m buying a house in my agent says I need a $50,000 deposit. What does that mean? So the deposit acts as a security for the contract so you sign the agreement, the buyer then provides the deposit. That deposit gets held not with the buyers agent, but with the listing agents real estate brokerage. For the buyer what that means is they now owe that amount of money LESS to the seller on closing date. For the seller it means that that amount of money, if it’s $20,000 will be applied to reduce the commission that they owe their agent. That’s a good understanding. So if you’ve paid that $20,000 deposit you’ve already paid out towards the purchase of the house. Absolutely that’s money to your credit. So I buy a $820,000 house I’ve made it at $20,000 deposit I still owe $800,000.

Sometimes it gets confusing and it is a little fearful to think that you have to come for the big chunk of change and how does it work in the longplay. It does and especially that the deposit disappears right away it’s gone and no one seems to be quite clear where it’s going to resurface again. Right so if we were speaking to any buyer/seller today to make for a smooth transition what would you advise? Definitely get in contact with the lawyer, pick a lawyer take your agents recommendation early and reach out to that lawyer. The lawyer is going to have an opening letter for you and hopefully if it’s my office that you’re dealing with, we have a closing checklist really easily and comprehensively through the process. My biggest tip though would be if you were trying to buy and sell don’t try to do it all on the same day. Consider bridge financing and your agent, your mortgage person can talk to you about how that factors in. But the bottom line being: you buy before you sell and it makes for a single transaction. So your warning people that same day, ‘I close my house and move out and I move into my new house’ it doesn’t always go as beautifully as everyone would like it to go.

It surely does happen, I’m not saying that it can’t be done because it is done all the time but what ends up happening is a deal could fall apart which jeopardizes the deal on the other side but more practically speaking when the deals do come together, clients are not getting their keys for new home until very late in the day. So if you’re buying and selling same day you will not have your keys until late in the day.

And as an Agent I’m gonna say we can’t control when our clients get the keys. Now we do harass lawyers regularly and I get it’s always good to check with a lawyer when those keys are coming. Absolutely. On a side note we do always recommend to our clients when their meeting with you if they need to update their wills that’s a great opportunity at that time to do it and we’ve dealt with a lot of international buyers and sellers that you can easily advise on some of the tax issues there as well. If clients have a will, it’s not invalid just because its old. So what we like to do is meet with clients and go through the will and see is everyone still alive in the will? Are there instructions still the same? Powers of attorney are also important and we can talk about all of that in context of estate planning. Bigger issues I think you’re alluding to, if you have people who are living out of country and there selling property or living out of country in buying property those are all things that need to be discovered early on the process so that we can direct people accordingly.

Perfect. Well I thank you for today and I think the big takeaway here for people who don’t be scared the lawyer you’re not the dentist. We are not the dentist the sharp tools are in the drawer and that’s where they stay. You can give great advice on preparing for buying or selling right out of the gate.

So thank you so much.

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Is it time for that afternoon tea or is it time for an afternoon Starbucks I’m here with Andrea McQueen of Andrea McQueen Designs in her beautiful home Does this make you want to redo your home or what? This kitchen and family room makes me want to redo my home always. We’re always redoing your home. Thank you for joining us today I just want to walk people through why it’s so essential to have a designer to have that confidante when purchasing or selling or when planning to stay forever what you know what avenues they should take with regards to investment pieces versus non investment pieces and where to start.

So many of our clients come to us at this time of the year and wonder ‘where do I begin?’, like where do I start peeling back the lemon and it can get scary really fast. So where do we start? And how do we budget for it and how do we make it all come together?

Great questions, all really good questions which we talk about all the time. The first thing I think to consider is engaging a professional really early on in the process because you don’t know what you don’t know right and because we’ve been through this and this is what we do for a living and this is what we do on the daily basis we know what you don’t know. I think it’s really important to start early and engage a professional early on and a professional is going to help you determine the scope of your project so really it’s a good idea to have an a number in mind when you’re thinking about a budget but in my experience take that number that you’re thinking about and as a rule of thumb don’t hate me for saying this on camera, and I double it. Double it in our experience because there’s certain considerations when it really what you want to do to your home is what’s gonna drive the budget you know and there’s you can always go higher end or lower end or make trade-offs but I think what’s so important is something that I know you see all the time is to think about when you’re considering a remodel or a redesign or you know a renovation project it’s not just to think about the end result in the end picture and it’s not just flooring it’s not just you know the cabinets it’s not just the appliances really what makes a well-designed space feel good and look good is the way all of these different design elements work in harmony and we’re trained and we’re really experienced in where it’s a you know the great the places where it’s makes sense to invest and the places where it makes sense to save. At the end of the day working with the designers going to save you money because you’re going to invest your money in things that are going to give you the best return on your investment as you know oftentimes they’ll come in to a client site after they’ve already started and they’ve spent $30,000 on their bathroom floor you know and they haven’t touched the plumbing or you know window treatments so you can take that budget and do an entire bathroom so we’re really good at giving you realistic ideas about where you’re going to get the biggest return on your investment.

And giving you that that ‘wow’ factor right? We see so many patchwork homes where I’m like ‘oh I love the floors you did’ and then I get to the kitchen and realize and you did two more floors because there wasn’t a pre-thought out pattern as to how this was all going to link and I’m not suggesting that everyone has to come in and do it all at once you know? But at least if the plans there and they know the kitchens gonna be step one. Flooring step two. However the process works it’s nice to know there’s continuity and when we go to sell it and you’ve spent $50,000 on Brazilian hardwood but you didn’t do anything else yeah it’s hard for me to get that return. Totally right. Totally.

You know when we also can look at a space come into a space and say wow you know if you just spent ten thousand dollars and did painted your cabinets switched out your backsplash and did your hardware it’s gonna feel like a totally new space. So you know depending on how much money people want to spend and how long they’re going to be in their home something I love to do is to help them you know have a five-year solution or you know a forever home. Really whatever it is they want to achieve help them make sure that their space, client space really is a reflection of who they are and really helps them to live better. Because at the end of the day good design is really improving your life and improving the way you live in your home.

Well you improved our lives. Everyone loves our home and says it’s a great reflection of us. I’m so happy. And we did, we were smart and saved for the big plan and you put the whole piece together and it does it still allows us to add pieces on to it but our base plan is so easy to work from that it just makes our home all congruent it’s so nice. I hope you can help many of our clients come with that big picture image and move forward and you know have a serene look to their home that makes them feel comfortable.

Thanks Andrea!

No problem.

Good afternoon! Sarah here. We’ve traded our Starbucks for a fresh cold pressed juice at freshii. I’m here with Sim, Owner of the freshii restaurant in north Burlington.

Hello everyone! I am Sim G, franchise partner for freshii at Appleby crossing. We offer healthy breakfast, lunch and dinner please come visit us, we’re looking forward to seeing you at the store. We’ve been hearing a lot of topics about this restaurant, we see a lot of happy people coming in. It’s a pretty cool location, being in our square here. It’s a really neat take on a quick lunch, or a quick dinner, but with a great healthy vibe.

What got you interested in freshii to become its owner?

I was investing with, working with one of the banks when I started looking into freshii in 2011, ever since I’ve been following up with freshii, I am a fitness freak, I do a lot of my meal preps before coming into freshii. It’s one of the cleanest restaurants, quick meal, healthy options we have and a lot of variety. It’s not like you’re eating everyday the same thing. So we have wraps, salads, bowls, burritos, so they’re all healthy. We have rice, rice noodles, as a base or you can quinoa, which is full of protein and full of amino acids. Those are the things that when I always wanted to own something on my own when I really drilled down to, ok where would I be happy going to and where I would actually eat myself. Freshii stood out and definitely some stuff worked out and I’m here! One of the busiest intersections and I’m happy to be here in the community.

Well it’s amazing because I know January, we all jump on the get healthy wagon and it feels like you’re eating salad after salad so some of the opportunities here to try so many different things maybe that you wouldn’t try at home or buy from grocery store, it’s a great opportunity to get healthy on a great, tasty menu. We’re so excited that you are here in the north end and we’ve heard so many great things about the restaurant, we really encourage you to come out and try freshii. We love it, you can catch us here anytime having a quick lunch and Sim is a great person to ask for as our owner here, she can run you through the menu and some of the dietary restrictions.

Thanks so much!